Crux: A Sci-Fi Romance (The Jekh Saga Book 2)

by H. E. Trent

  “The order is there for a reason.”

  “For Tyneali reasons.”

  “And for better or worse, we have a lot of Tyneali in us. Perhaps you’d like to reject those instincts that sometimes seem so alien and…” Esteben narrowed his eyes and sucked some air through his teeth. “Abhorrent.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “There are many that I would, but I am what I am. The Tyneali components of my DNA keep me motivated to procreate as much as they try to kill me. The human parts of me force me to think of ways to go about finding a partner that may be outside of the confines of Jekhan culture.”

  “You’d take Erin from me knowing I wouldn’t want anyone else?”

  “That’s not the way this works,” Esteben said.

  “You said it, and I’ll adopt the same mantra—I am what I am. Perhaps I shouldn’t care for her the way I do, but why should I try to fight the emotions if she’s so willing to reciprocate? Why can’t I have that?”

  “Maybe she’s not for you.”

  Bullshit.

  Headron clenched his teeth and rolled his gaze up to the light blue ceiling.

  He didn’t think arguing with Esteben was productive, but they needed to come to some sort of accord. Headron wasn’t going to just leave Erin to him.

  Then he remembered what Amy had said.

  He scoffed, and closed his eyes.

  Damn.

  “I don’t want to share,” he muttered.

  “Share what, baker?”

  Headron sucked in a deep breath and let the air out in a sputter before pinning his gaze on Esteben again. “My name is Headron Jiro, not baker or any other thing you have in mind to call me.”

  “Fine. Headron.” Esteben turned his hands over again. His body language may have been conciliatory, but the tone of his voice bore no agreement.

  Headron wasn’t in the mood to press. If he couldn’t hold Erin—and he might have been too disquieted for such a treat, anyway—he wanted to find some warm corner to curl up and go to bed in before he had to get up and start pounding dough again.

  “I don’t wish to share Erin with you or anyone,” Headron said, “but apparently I already am. You’ve put me in a situation I did not wish to be in.”

  “I’ve made you second.”

  “I’m no one’s other male.”

  Esteben raised his eyebrows and let them fall. He didn’t need to speak when his face was already saying so much.

  “You doubt me,” Headron said.

  “You gave up any rights you had to claim that leading male position when you didn’t fuck her when you had the chance. You’re not aggressive enough.”

  “We made a deal, Erin and I. That’s what you’re interfering in—something you don’t even know about. You’ve ruined it.”

  “Enlighten me, then, Headron. And I daresay ruin is a very strong word.”

  Headron took the few steps between him and Esteben and set his hands on the bench on either side of the other man’s thighs. Nearly nose-to-nose, Headron realized that he was there because Esteben had allowed him to be. If doing so were his wish, he’d make Headron go away.

  “Look at how perfect you are,” Esteben purred. “Not a single mar on you, is there?”

  Headron’s lungs went leaden and his ears burned at the words that had somehow managed to be both complimentary and accusatory at the same time. He wasn’t going to be toppled so easily by an arrogant Beshni, though. Not even one Amy thought he should take as a lover. “Erin…and I had an arrangement,” he said haltingly. “She didn’t want me completely attached to her on the off-chance that whatever lover I ended up having to take didn’t like her.”

  “And?”

  Using a sort of resoluteness Headron hadn’t known he possessed, he kept his gaze fixed on Esteben’s wine-colored eyes and not on the very fine pair of lips that kept quirking up in Headron’s periphery.

  Headron may have supposedly been perfect, but Esteben was a delight to look at. Even the scars. There was one that slanted down from his nose to the Cupid’s bow over his lip, notching into it a bit.

  How’d he get that?

  Esteben grinned.

  Headron swallowed. Breathed. Breathed again. Looked up.

  There.

  He could almost think clearly. “The deal was that we wouldn’t…fuck, as you put it, until things had been settled.”

  “I see.”

  “No, you don’t, because that’s not all. I asked for help. I sought out a matchmaker, against my better judgment, and do you know what she told me?”

  “I’m certain you’ll enlighten me.”

  “Indeed. She told me that I didn’t need to look any farther than this farm. She told me that if I were looking for the right balance—that if I wanted to have a woman like Erin—that I should implore you to be my lover.”

  If Esteben had an opinion about that confession, he didn’t speak it, and remarkably didn’t even show any interest on his face.

  He stared into Headron’s eyes, not moving, and apparently not even breathing much. No moving air tickled Headron’s damp skin.

  “Shocking, yes?” Headron said. “Shock was my reaction as well, as was denial and a few other dark things. I mean, an exalted Beshni with a baker.” He clucked his tongue. “What a mismatch.”

  Esteben’s eyebrows shifted upward again, only to slowly fall soon after.

  He’d started breathing again, causing sudden goosebumps on Headron’s skin, but still didn’t say anything.

  Headron straightened up and looked down at him. “I’m certain you understand why I didn’t say anything afterward. I was convinced I’d find some other plan.”

  “Perhaps you will.” Esteben stood from the bench and then waded to the nearby steps.

  “Done already?”

  Esteben paused with one foot on the step. “Are you offering to wash me?”

  Guilty pleasure that slowly discovering all of Esteben’s scars may have been, Headron articulated a confident-sounding, “No,” and walked to the opposite steps.

  He didn’t want to think about Esteben’s body. He didn’t want to commit the bends and nooks of him to memory. He didn’t want to think about what Esteben might have looked like inside of Erin, and he certainly didn’t want to think about what he might do if he had to bear witness to such a sight.

  He wrapped a towel around his waist and, tugged by the movement in his periphery, turned his head toward Esteben. He had his back turned, and was scrubbing his hair dry. Regal posture. Immaculate build. Superbly formed.

  Headron had no business looking.

  Had no business growing hard, but he couldn’t stop staring, and he didn’t stop even after Esteben turned.

  He saw Headron staring—had to—but he didn’t cover up. He actually walked around the rim of the bath, forcing Headron to look up at his face, and not his cock, when he was less than a meter away.

  Esteben lifted Headron’s arm, slung a towel onto Headron’s forearm and leaned in, whispering, “Dry me.”

  Headron forced down a swallow, and with it, the word no.

  He couldn’t deny that he wanted to touch Esteben. He shouldn’t have wanted to. The man didn’t respect him in the slightest bit and was something of a bully, but Headron couldn’t help what he was attracted to.

  He swiped the end of the towel across Esteben’s chest and, emboldened by the fact he didn’t melt or turn into stone, he pressed the towel more firmly over Esteben’s shoulders. Down his arms and sides.

  Before wicking off the water over Esteben’s belly, he wadded the towel a bit, and then tapped rather than rubbed. There were numerous scars there. Old and white, and he put fingers over them rather than cloth. He had to feel them if only to pay his respects. They were there and he’d seen them. But he didn’t query about them, even if he was curious about what may have caused them.

  He knelt to dry the outsides of Esteben’s legs and his feet, and then up the insides of his muscular calves and thighs.

 
; Midway up, he stopped and swallowed again, but not because he was trying to stop himself from saying no, but because his mouth watered at what hung there.

  Flaccid, but still so tempting. Still beaded with a bit of water from the bath.

  He raised the towel, slowly, and worked one small corner over a beaded droplet that was moving down Esteben’s foreskin. And then another from his heavy sac.

  “Inefficient,” Esteben whispered. “Still wet, but I’ll make do.”

  He stepped closer, brushing his soft cock against Headron’s lips momentarily, then walked away, chuckling.

  Still on his knees, Headron watched, dumbstruck, as Esteben scooped up his clothes.

  “Think about what I said,” Esteben said. “You’re not aggressive. You know what that means and you know what that means you are. Perhaps you could be leading male with someone else, but not with me.”

  “Are you implying that…” Headron couldn’t shape the words. Couldn’t even swallow.

  “I’m not implying anything at all. I’m stating fact, nothing more.”

  Esteben left, and Headron kept kneeling.

  He thought perhaps he belonged on the rough, punishing floor on his knees. He’d think about how his flesh stung and his toes ached from their press against the crude tiles, and convince himself that Esteben hadn’t just insinuated that he’d be open to taking Headron as a lover.

  A low-class baker who’d tried to subvert the system by being a woman’s sole lover only to get reined back in by someone more assertive.

  Someone more dominating.

  He closed his eyes and tipped his head back. He settled into that grueling position. Itemized every pinprick of pain, every throb. He made the stings fuel for lust. Every one reminded him of why he was down on that floor. He’d knelt because he’d been told to serve, and he hadn’t said no.

  Hadn’t really wanted to say no. In the end, he’d wanted that soft cock in his mouth. He’d wanted to suck until it hardened, and then to sit back on his heels to stare at his good work. He would have congratulated himself for how shiny it was, all slicked with his spit, and how ready it was for more licks, more squeezes, more sucks.

  He could take him deep, or try to. Esteben’s cock was of impressive length and girth, but Headron could be enthusiastic when he wanted to be.

  And, suddenly, Headron wanted to be.

  “Amy’s always right,” he whispered to the ceiling before slowly putting his hands to the floor and pushing himself upright.

  If he could tame Esteben, even a little, he could hook his lovely Erin.

  Perhaps that’s not such a bad deal.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Eileen waited with her back pressed to the end of the building at the alleyway, trying to be one with the shadows, and suspecting that she was failing. She wasn’t a waif possessing the innate ability to blend easily into backgrounds. She was a born and bred cowgirl with thunder thighs, wide hips, a huge droopy bosom, and a big ol’ mouth.

  “They really expect me to wait like this?” she muttered.

  Lillian hadn’t warned her that utilizing ninja skills were part and parcel of the mission.

  Eileen gripped the handle of her duffel bag tighter and took another step back into the darkness as a police officer patrolling Buinet’s Zone Two ambled past with his wrist COM held close to his face as if he didn’t quite know how the damned things worked. He didn’t need to put his mouth so close. The microphones in most mobile COMs were sensitive enough to pick up a pin being dropped as far away as on Earth’s moon.

  “Yeah,” he said into the COM. “Nothin’ happening out here. Tell Reg I did my rounds. I need to get back to my beat before someone who doesn’t know nothin’ finds out I’m off it.”

  “Everything’s secure?” came the response.

  “Yeah. Hey, listen—I know we’re kinda pinched for personnel here, but what happened to all those cops that came in on the transport last year? You’d think there’d be enough of them in Buinet that the city would have assigned a few to the depot.”

  Eileen bit down hard on her tongue and slapped her hand over her mouth to tamp down her shout of glee. Thanks to the commissioner, Eileen knew exactly what had happened to about thirty of those cops. They’d bounced the hell off Jekh on the first ship the commissioner could get them on during the riots. They were Team “I didn’t sign up for this shit,” and as their coach, she’d been happy to see them go. She was happier, still, that they’d go home to Earth and run their mouths about what really was happening.

  “Don’t concern yourself with them. Make sure the doors are locked and get back to work. That’s all you were sent to do.”

  “Ten-four. Going now.”

  The whistling cop dropped his wrist, turned on his heel, and then headed toward the huge bay doors at the back of the building.

  As soon as he was gone, Eileen was supposed to go in. The commissioner had given her a special key card that wouldn’t get logged by the lock sensors. Her task was to get into the depot, find a certain ship, and to start the pre-launch sequence in advance of Salehi’s police department shift ending. The process could take minutes or hours, and she wouldn’t know what she was dealing with until she got into the cockpit. She didn’t even know what the ship looked like. Although she hadn’t been given explicit instructions, she was confident she could get the thing ready to launch. She hadn’t spent all those years on shuttles between Jekh and Earth without learning some things about how to fly them. The captains always dozed off. When they did, she’d studied. Amy had always watched her back.

  “Amy…” she whispered, clutching her strap tighter. Eileen wouldn’t really believe she was okay until she got to put her arms around her, but that had to wait. Eileen had “missions.”

  She snorted quietly, and shook her head. “Came all the way across the galaxy to be a damned secret agent, and to think, my daddy didn’t think I’d amount to anything except shoveling cow shit.”

  The cop gave the doors a yank, then jammed his hands into the pockets of his cargo pants and walked toward the opposite corner, still whistling.

  Eileen waited until he’d rounded it, counted another ten seconds more, and then she ran as hard—and as quietly—as she could to the entrance marked “PERSONNEL ONLY” near the hangar doors.

  She fumbled briefly with the card she’d tucked into her breast pocket, righted the rectangle so the credential tag faced the correct direction, and then quickly swiped the chip over the sensor.

  The motor inside the reader clicked and whirred. The lock cylinder opened with a thunk.

  Taking a quick look behind her to make sure that cop hadn’t returned, she let herself into the building.

  As the door shut with a quiet snick, she stood still in the dark waiting for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light, and also to gather her wits.

  “Jeez. I wonder if this is what Black Widow feels like when she breaks into stuff.”

  No regular citizen had been able to get off the planet since the riots. The only people allowed permits to come and go at will were certain freight haulers…and pirate shit stains like Reg Devin who’d been on Jekh for so long that the rules didn’t apply to them.

  Reg Devin’s conveyance was precisely what Eileen needed to look for.

  She raked her gaze across the football field-sized space, clucking her tongue as she scanned. Judging by their coats of dust, some of the space vessels parked in the facility hadn’t been moved in quite some time. The one parked in a primo spot near the middle of the building was shiny enough to blind.

  “Reg’s Beauty.” She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Compensating much, little boy?”

  The big ship was what was known in space travel lingo as “Class 18”—eighteen as in “Eighteen-wheeler,” like Earth’s road-hogging big rig trucks. The long, tube-shaped ships were generally used to haul freight, though they were frequently customized to add additional passenger space. Retrofitting was still less expensive than buying passenger-class vehicles brand new
. The commissioner hadn’t been able to speculate on what her son had done to Beauty’s interior, only that Eileen should keep a tight grip on her pistol as she inspected it.

  She unzipped her bag, found her gun, and checked the rounds for the bullets she’d pulled out of her hoard from Earth. She didn’t trust electronic weapons the way she did old-fashioned metal and gunpowder. Like most of the kids who’d grown up out in the middle of nowhere, Eileen had learned to shoot cans off posts. That plunk sound the cans made when metal met metal was infinitely more satisfying than the zing of electrons hitting the tin.

  “And ol’ Daisy doesn’t need to be charged every thirty-six hours.”

  She gripped the gun in her right hand while clenching the handle of her duffel in her left.

  She tapped the ship’s entry panel with her elbow and the door slid open with a pleasing chime. “Welcome aboard Reg’s Beauty,” the automated greeting voice said. “Are you well today?”

  She dropped her bag just inside the doorway, and muttered, “Was doing better before you talked. Lights on, low.”

  “Unable to comply. Unrecognized voice,” the computer returned.

  “Figured you’d say that.” Eileen rooted a small flashlight out of the side pocket of her bag, turned it on, and let the door slide shut behind her.

  She danced the light’s beam around the small foyer, and dug some more in the pocket for the vial the commissioner had given her. The commissioner had said that Reg’s ship controls were disabled by a theft-deterring, after-market programming lock, and he was the only person—aside from his first officer—who could tinker with the controls, or anything of consequence on the vessel. But, as mothers were often so good at, the commissioner had ways of subverting her kid’s efforts. The ship had been hers first. Reg’s coding was no more permanent than someone tacking a dinky piece of cardboard with a bigger number over a speed limit sign because they wanted to go faster.

  “Don’t worry, Commissioner,” Eileen said, making her way carefully to the cockpit. “We’ll get that brat just the kind of attention he needs. Don’t you fret.”